Becoming Partners
by anotherweasley
Summary: Missing scene from near the end of Audrey Pauley. Scully POV.


Becoming Partners  
By: Olivia  
  
"Audrey," Monica managed to get out. "I think she's in danger."  
  
John nodded once at her words. He obviously understood what Monica was saying. I was completely confused at the words and completely amazed at Monica being alive. She was supposed to be dead and I had nearly allowed the transplant team to cut out her organs.  
  
John unwillingly and gently laid Monica's hand that he had been clinging to back down on the bed. "I'll be right back," he said to her. Then he turned to me. "Stay with her. I need to go check on someone and find that damn Doctor. Make sure she's okay. Probably got lots of drugs in her system."  
  
All I could do was nod as John cast one more glance at his partner before rushing out of the room. I assume he was going to check on who ever this "Audrey" woman was and apprehend the Doctor. As a Doctor myself I involuntarily shuddered at the thought of him killing his own patients. The first rule...thou shalt do no harm...  
  
Monica was alive when everyone, except John, believed her to be gone. Why should I be surprised though after all I've seen and experienced over the past nine years? Mulder had come back from the dead hadn't he? Why shouldn't Monica?  
  
I smile comfortingly at Monica. "I'm glad you're back, Monica." I can tell that her body is still under the effects of the drugs, but she knows now that she has given us the indisputable sign of her being alive. She knows we won't let anything happen to her. I look at her monitors. Her vitals are slowly returning to normal. "Don't worry. You're going to be just fine. We're going to flush the drugs out of your system. It'll take a little time."  
  
Monica nods and drifts back into her drug-induced sleep. I call in two of the hospital nurses and we set up the system to do a toxicology screening and then started to flush the drugs out of her system. Other than that, the seatbelt and airbag had save her life.  
  
As I had promised John, I keep watch over Monica. I would have any way. I sit by her beside and watch her sleep. I wonder how many times I have sat by Mulder's bedside waiting and worrying-too many to count.  
  
I think about what a long night it has been. I should have believed John when he told me Monica was alive. He knew. Somehow he knew. I could only look at him and see a man who was grief stricken at the loss of his partner. All I could see was him unable to accept that she was gone.   
  
But then the role of "believer" has never been easy for me. That's a role I have never been comfortable with. That is Mulder's role...that is Monica's role. Two skeptics John and I and he turns believer on this one. That thought makes me smile sadly. Perhaps he's not as stubborn as I have accused him of in the past. But then this was a difficult time for him. Desperate times make men believe things they would not ordinarily believe in.  
  
I saw something tonight, something in John's eyes, behind the sadness I saw there. I saw that he loved her. And there are no two people who seem more perfect to me, so right together, except maybe Mulder and myself. Mulder-I miss him so much. It hurts not knowing even if he's alive or dead. But seeing Monica returned to us like this gives me hope that Mulder will be returned to me too alive and well. If there's one thing I've learned after all these years is not to give up hope.  
  
I hear movement and I look to Monica. She is slowly coming back to consciousness.  
  
"Hi, Monica."  
  
Monica finally gets her eyes open and turns her head to look in my direction. "John's not back?"  
  
I glance down at my watch. It's been awhile. That is somewhat of a concern to me, but Monica doesn't need to know that right now. "He should be back shortly. How are you feeling?"  
  
"Alive."  
  
I can see the light returning to Monica's eyes. She really is back.  
  
"So who's Audrey?" I ask trying to keep her mind off John's whereabouts, trying to keep her from worrying. It sort of comes naturally after working on the X-Files. We are always trying to protect each other.  
  
"A patient aid here. She helped me get back. She communicated with John for me," Monica explains.  
  
Monica's words startle me and dredge up my own memory. I remember Nurse Owens who helped me get "back" after my coma, after everyone had given up hope and turned off my life support.  
  
And then I think of John, how like Mulder, he was unwillingly to let his partner go. I can't believe that he would believe that some woman was communicating with Monica. But like I said before, desperate times make people believe things despite themselves. When I had asked him earlier why he thought Monica was alive, he told me I'd think he was crazy. We'll maybe I wouldn't have thought he was crazy after all. But then again maybe I would have. I am a skeptic by nature after all.  
  
I smile at Monica. "Well this Audrey woman must have told John something pretty convincing to make him believe you weren't gone."  
  
Monica returns my smile. "I told her to tell him he was a dog person."  
  
Monica notices my confusion. She explains, "It was a conversation we had had just before I dropped him off."  
  
I nod. "He...." I was about to tell her that John loves her and tell her how he had fought for her, how he wouldn't let her go, when John chose that moment to walk into the room. Then I realized that I was glad for the interruption. It wasn't my place to tell her he loves her. It is John's. Then I noticed the sadness had returned to John's face. It did not go unnoticed by Monica either.  
  
"She's dead isn't she?" says Monica quietly and sadly.  
  
"Yes," says John equally as quiet and equally as sad.  
  
Monica looks at John. "She saved my life, you know. She told me you needed a sign. We didn't know what to do. So she took me outside the hospital, like this place but different. There was nothing but air and clouds. She told me I needed to jump, that I didn't have much time. I told her...I told her that I couldn't, that I'd die. But she told me it wasn't my time to die right now, that I'd be fine. And I jumped...and now I'm here and she's not."  
  
John just walks toward Monica and sits down in the chair closest to her bed. He takes her hand and squeezes it. "I caught the Doctor just as he was leavin' her room. If only...if only I had been there a few minutes sooner. But I had to be here with you. I had to make certain..."  
  
I can see Monica squeeze his hand back. She knows, I realize. She knows he loves her, even if he has never spoken the words to her. She feels it as she says, "I think this was something out of our hands. Before I came back Audrey said she knew whom it was who told her to build the hospital. Thanks for not giving up on me."  
  
John smiles at Monica, relief written all over his face. "I'm just glad you're okay. Saves me the trouble of breakin' in a new partner."  
  
Monica manages a chuckle. "You can't get rid of me that easy."  
  
A silence settles over the room and suddenly I feel like an outside, an intruder. They need time to say more than perhaps they would say in front of me despite me being their friend. I make an excuse, tell them I have to call Monica's parents and give them the good news.  
  
As I leave the room, I glance back one more time through the window before I head to the nurses' station. The last image I see is of John sitting there holding Monica's hand, the two of them perfectly content in each other's company. They don't need to say anything. Words are imperfect sometimes and imprecise someone had once told me. I realize they are finally becoming partners, in every sense of the word.  
  
The End  
  
"Mr. Morgan buys his partners; I grow my own."-Andrew Carnegie  
  
"If the while I think on thee dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end."-William Shakespeare-"Sonnet 30" 


End file.
